'Open warfare and bitterness' as leading councillors leave Enfield cabinet

Five well known faces in this photograph of the May 2018 Enfield cabinet will be missing from this year's.. Front row, l to r: Mary Maguire, Daniel Anderson, Nesil Caliskan, Yasemin Brett, Alev Kazimoglu; back row l to r: Achilleas Georgiou, Ahmet Oykener, Nneka Keazor, Dino Lemonides, Guney Dogan

At last night's annual general meeting of the Labour Group on Enfield Council the existing deep divisions among Labour councillors reached crisis point. Five cabinet members who were standing for re-election decided to withdraw their bids. They included the deputy leader of the council, Daniel Anderson. The meeting chose as his replacement Ian Barnes, a councillor in Winchmore Hill ward.

Francis Sealey of the Enfield Voices Facebook group, described the situation thus:

Never in the over 50 years of being in Enfield have I seen the Labour Parties and the Council in such a mess as it is today. There is more open warfare and bitterness than ever and I have seen some past big battles.

This mess and confusion was climaxed last night at the Annual General Meeting of the Labour Group when many Councillors who had turned up for interview by the local Parties withdrew their nominations and that included half of the outgoing Cabinet. It included the withdrawal as deputy Leader of the popular Daniel Anderson.

Daniel Anderson provided information about the reason for his decision and the make-up of the new cabinet:

I, along with Achilleas Georgiou, Yasemin Brett, Ahmet Oykener and Dino Lemonides all withdrew from standing for any of the Executive positions. In my case that was a nomination for Leader, Deputy Leader and Cabinet.

Our reasoning was that we respected the position of the Local Campaign Forum representing the 3 CLPs and over 100 party members that rejected the validity of the Labour Group AGM due to the many failures in the process not least because it was in breach of both of Party Rules and the Labour Group's Standing Orders.

Personally speaking I was not prepared to serve in a Cabinet led by Nesil Caliskan who I and many others deem to be unfit for public office.

The Associate Cabinet Members are Claire Stewart, Ahmet Hasan and Mustafa Cetinkaya.

The Chair of Overview & Scrutiny Committee is now Susan Erbil who beat Derek Levy. The other members of Overview & Scrutiny are Achilleas Georgiou, Tolga Aramaz, Bernie Lappage and Sinan Boztas.

The Mayor is Kate Anolue. The Deputy Mayor is Sabri Ozaydin.

Asked by a Facebook poster why he deems Nesil Caliskan unfit for public office, Daniel Anderson replied that he would be happy to explain why "in due course".

Note: Because this information reached me shortly before the deadline for the weekly newsletter, I did not have an opportunity to contact the council leader, Nesil Caliskan, for her comments. I will do so though and, if she replies, add her response to this report.

Following last week's decision by five members of Enfield's cabinet not to stand for re-election, council leader Nesil Caliskan has given an interview to the Enfield Dispatch, in which she dismisses criticism of her leadership qualities by former deputy leader Daniel Anderson. She accuses the former cabinet members of "sour grapes" and affirms that the Labour group is a "very united group".

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